Between form and meaning: Translating nursery rhymes

Zuzanna Bodziony

doi:10.25312/j.10439

№ 1/26 (2026)

Artykuły

Between form and meaning: Translating nursery rhymes

Zuzanna Bodziony^▸^▾

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25312/j.10439 [Google Scholar]
Опубликован: 2026-03-25

Аннотация

This article addresses translation strategies which are applied in children’s songs. Based on a detailed line-by-line analysis of eight popular English nursery rhymes and their Polish and Hungarian versions, the study identifies and compares dominant tendencies: meaning-oriented versus form-oriented approaches. The results indicate that Polish translations exhibit a slight predominance of form-oriented strategies (53%), whereas Hungarian ones show a slight preference for meaning-oriented approaches (53%). A key conclusion, however, is the significant variation observed across individual songs, proving that the choice of strategy is influenced not only by the general characteristics of the target language but mainly by the specific requirements and nature of each particular song.

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